The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

Militia volunteers were kitted out at the former Pedralbes barracks, now the Miguel Bakunin barracks where García Oliver had based the Popular School of War. The same building was used for foreign anarchists who arrived to fight in the International Column. They came from all over Europe and Latin America. There were many Italians including Camillo Berneri, a philosophy professor who was murdered the following year during the events of May in Barcelona, and Carlo Roselli, who organized the Giustizia e Libertà column of liberals and anarchists, but who was assassinated in France the following June by members of the right-wing Cagoule. A group of Americans formed the Sacco and Vanzetti centuria and a detachment of Germans made up the Erich Muhsam centuria, named after the anarchist poet murdered two years before by the Gestapo. The POUM also used these barracks for their militia columns, which included foreign volunteers of whom the most famous was George Orwell. The communist PSUC, under Joan Comorera, found itself in a difficult position. Communist policy demanded a regular army, not militias, yet they could not antagonize their allies.

The largest operation in the east at this time was the invasion by Catalonian militia of the Balearic Islands. Ibiza was taken easily and on 16 August 8,000 men invaded Majorca under the command of an air force officer, Alberto Bayo, later to be Fidel Castro’s guerrilla trainer. The invaders established a bridgehead unopposed, then paused as if in surprise. For once the militia had artillery, air and even naval support, yet they gave the nationalists time to organize a counter-attack. Modern Italian aircraft arrived and strafed and bombed the invading force virtually unopposed. The withdrawal and re-embarkation, ordered by the new minister of marine, Indalecio Prieto, turned into a rout. The island then became an important naval and air base for the nationalists for the rest of the war.

The Aragón front became a stalemate after the Carlist reinforcements arrived at Saragossa. The only exception was an unsuccessful attack on Huesca organized by Colonel Villalba. The town was defended by 6,000 men against his besieging force of 13,000, but a supply line along the railtrack stayed open, allowing the nationalists to bring up supplies and reinforcements.²³ Militia detachments held each hill in a rough line along the front, while nationalist troops were installed on the far side of the valley. (The day-to-day existence is best described in George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia.)

In Madrid the Communist Party already had a military base on which to build. Their Worker and Peasant Anti-Fascist Militia (MAOC) provided the initial cadres for their 5th Regiment. The first communist objective was to make them look and act like disciplined soldiers. Practical military training was secondary to drilling. ‘Steel’ companies were formed (later to be imitated by other parties) and they paraded ostentatiously through Madrid causing an appreciable effect.²⁴ Marching in step presented a great contrast to the militias. The mentality of the 5th Regiment was best described by a party official: ‘We established special slogans designed to create an iron unity…“If my comrade advances or retreats without orders I have the right to shoot him.”’²⁵

The training of the International Brigades was to follow a similar pattern with drill, discipline and political indoctrination taking up most of the precious time before they were sent up to the front. The Party manual said that a soldier would only fight well if carefully instructed on why he was fighting. This ideological drilling was the work of political commissars and the 5th Regiment was responsible for their introduction. Officially they were there to watch over the ‘reliability’ of the regular commander. In fact, they were agents in the Communist Party’s plan to take over the republican army, which would have to be formed if a conventional war was fought. These ‘secular chaplains’ were later the cause of a great power struggle between the communists and the government.

The first commander of the 5th Regiment was Enrique Castro Delgado, who was assisted by foreign communist advisers. The Party’s ‘common front’ recruiting campaign, led by La Pasionaria, attracted many who admired the 5th Regiment’s professional appearance. Some 25 per cent of the new recruits were socialists; about 15 per cent left republicans. Later they discovered that promotion was virtually impossible without Party membership, since the 5th Regiment served chiefly as a training base for future communist officers. The Communist Party claimed that some 60,000 men served in its ranks, but a maximum of 30,000 is probably more accurate.²⁶ They included Juan Modesto, a former Foreign Legion corporal, and the Moscow-trained Enrique Líster, both of whom were to become important commanders.